The release of Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic CC—and the untimely death of Lightroom as a stand-alone product that is available sans subscription—has inspired some very strong reactions within the photo community. But even those of us who aren't itching to yell profanities at the folks at Adobe are left with some questions about the future of this software.

Enter Dan Watson of Learning Cameras, who recently sat down with Adobe director of product management Tom Hogarty and Lightroom product manager Sharad Mangalick for a deep dive on this major release, how it would impact current Lightroom users who don't want to switch to a cloud-based workflow, and, most importantly, what the future looks like for Lightroom Classic CC.

In other words: is Lightroom Classic an afterthought that is going to be phased out in a couple of years?

You can check out the full interview at the top of this post—they cover everything from the reason for the name change, to moving images between the two versions, to potential future features, video integration, custom preset, and a lot more—but since everyone has been wondering, here's the answer to the question above.

No, Lightroom Classic CC isn't going anywhere.

In fact, Adobe has two separate teams working to build out Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic CC, so this isn't some side-project that will quickly be relegated to the back burner.

Some photographers want to work on a hard disk-based desktop workflow, and Adobe has no interest in deserting those users, at least according to Hogarty. Speaking of Lightroom CC, he said:

We don't want [the name change] to be perceived as a lack of investment, or a lack of effort with that product. It is very good at what it was designed to do, which is manage files and folders on disk. All of those desktop-local workflows that photographers told us about during our first Lightroom Public Beta back in 2006, we are absolutely going to continue investing in. It's a different team.

To hear more about Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic CC from the product managers who actually decide where these products go in the future, click play up top. And if you want to hear our thoughts on the product-line split, read two opposing opinions by senior editors here at DPReview below:

it depends really. if you aren't paying for a subscription, then why would you get all the features of the subscription on a standalone, which would tend to make the development disjointed. as LR standalone would be on a major release schedule of annually, LR CC semi monthly updates,etc. and patch, bugfix, new camera releases done as required for both.

that makes things a bit of a mess to manage over time, it's not just a matter of a few switches, as what you include and exclude from LR standalone during the year could end up being breaking changes.

They say it was because nearly everyone was using CC. I don't know if it's true but if there were lots of people still using perpetual why would they not want their money if all they had to do was offer the upgrade?

Adobe customer since 1994. LR since v1. Full CC subscription. My trust in Adobe is gone. In the best case, a marketing disaster. In the worst case, willful misleading of customers. I’m not going to wait and see whether Adobe keeps its promise to continue and further develop LR CC classic long-term. Whatever “long-term” means, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years ? Until the next disastrous change of mind by management - tomorrow ?

LR Cloud version is cleared targeted toward casual (i.e. smartphone) shooters. But I'm not sure these people are the type that spend extra money on such things. Maybe couple bucks on apps but not monthly subscription. Adobe is trying to create a new market but will fail hard IMO.

The real questions is: "will customers absolutely continue investing in Lightroom Classic"?I have a basic CC subscription and the "dual lightroom" is just confusing, extremely confusing... I don't know where my original files are stored anymore. Classic is too complicated and CC is too simple. It's such a mess 😞.For the first time in many years I am exploring alternatives.

Off your using LR Classic your original photos are stored on your computer. Using the new LR CC they are storedin the cloud for use on all devices you may have. Check out various YouTube videos on this these two.

As I replied to the previous person, Adobe have strategically moved away from dependance on the trust of the photography community. Business marketing solutions is where much of their focus is these days.

Yes always competitors, but (in your example) AltaVista/Netscape didn't lose marketshare because of them cutting off a portion of their userbase. They lost marketshare because competitors offered a 'better' solution.

So the situation with Adobe is different. If Adobe is still perceived as a solution worth spending monthly on (and I think for many they will), then nothing will change. Us as the vocal minority upset about this change will migrate to other solutions and Adobe will keep rolling. The issue will 'resolve.'

It seems to be human nature to get outraged and then, after a few days/weeks/months, it smoothes over and people get outraged at something else.

I just don't see a long term frustration or upsetedness at Adobe changing Adobe. They don't care what we think, they care if we're buying. And there are a lot of people buying (which is what brought us to today).

Here is why I don’t think it will blow over. Photos are not like spreadsheet, word processor or music programs. Photo programs like LR store your life history, your family history, your travel history, your life’s passions. You entrust your photos to a company that will be there. While Adobe will certainly exist and prosper. The loss in trust from the photography community means many will look elsewhere for a programs that catalog and edit there photos.

Yes it is true that the subscription model does not mean you ever lose access to your photos. But it does mean that the thousands of hours you’ve spent editing your photos comes to a grinding halt...no more editing unless you subscribe. To edit further, you have to export your partially edited photos elsewhere. Get a new camera and you’ll need another program to edit those raw pictures. So you might as well fully convert to the new program (Exposure, Capture One, or whatever).

It is simple, Adobe is a business, they will keep doing something till they do not make enough money on it then it will be gone. They only care about us as customers as long as they can get money from us, they are not our friends or family and they will go a different direction anytime they want!

In short: nobody has ever done anything for the others to please them. Everything is just done for money. More money. I love LTR6. I have had it since Ltr2 was released. But I do NOT want to subscribe !!!

Adobe could have made plenty of money selling standalone LR from now until the end of photography. LR is a great product with a strong base in the photography community. But making a lot of money wasn't enough for them. They had to screw the pooch and lose the trust of their customers.

Yake that is the same for Photoshop. Make a GOOD basic program that works amazingly fast and sell it to those that want that as a standalone. I HATE updates as things change that I don't want or need to change. I am still using PS2 as it works fast and will print the way I want. Newer programs are slower and they will not print correctly (for what I do). I would buy a PS6 / 8 / 10 / 20 or whatever as a standalone if it was offered as long as I knew it was what it was and it was not changing.

Reality check here...the statement "Adobe is a business, they will keep doing something till they do not make enough money on it then it will be gone. They only care about us as customers as long as they can get money from us, they are not our friends or family"

applies to any commercial alternative you will choose. On1, Dx0, MacPhun, Affinity are not charities. They will make their software as long as they can get money from you. All of them. They will adapt and evolve their products to where they believe their market is. Every one of them.

They could get dropped like Aperture. Or they can get bought like Nik or Picasa, two companies whose software will never be updated again.

If you truly do not want to be left behind when your suppliers change course, you should only be using open source software. But even those projects sometimes fail to be maintained.

@graybalanced True, but Adobe could've kept making money selling the standalone LR. Many customers would pay for performance upgrades and camera raw updates. There would always be new photographers buying it of the first time. But Adobe went the greedy route in moving to a subscription-only system.

Ha ha...Google? You want Google to save us? You need to brush up on history. Google already bought the entire photo product lines of Nik and Picasa, and what happened to them?

The reason Google bought them was to do EXACTLY what Adobe did: Use former desktop photo software as a starting point to build out cloud-based photo software. That's where all the code went that Google bought, to create cloud-based Google Photos. Google and Adobe have exactly the same goals for photography, provide a cloud-based "photos on any device" service to keep people in their bigger cloud ecosystem. Same goals as Apple and Amazon.

@graybalanced Well, Google does fund open source project regularly (pls look up Google Summer of Code). They are a giant corporation and like all other corporations they look at their own interests. I am not saying Google's massive influence/control over our lives don't scare me - but one can't ignore the good things it has done. And if anyone can take Adobe to task it's Google given their background and history.

Look at Google fonts - they hired the some of the best typographers to design fonts and made them free and open source - anyone can use them, even for commercial projects. It has broken the monopoly of Type Foundries (including Adobe) for decent quality fonts. They bought Sketchup and NIK and made them available for everyone for free. And don't forget Android - it also had a very similar history.

(By the way, Apple also hates Adobe and they have billions of dollars just sitting in bank, but they are too miserly to do it)

Realistically, all of these companies are in it for the money. The same way the majority of us go to work for the money. Few of us want to give away our time for free. Adobe, Apple, and Google have all done both very admirable things and things that seem outright greedy, but in the end they are all multi-billion dollar companies with stockholders and that is going to limit how much more virtuous any one of them is more than another.

At least Google sold Nik to Dx0 today. And that's no different an example than any of the others. The other day Dx0 was being criticized in the forums for questionable methodologies for their lens testing scores, today they're a hero for rescuing Nik from the dead software purgatory at Google. And so it goes.

I've probably already said it 20 times in one form or another since the announcement came out, but what we need (LR6 users) is simply a LR ONLY subscription for around $5 per month with no storage and NO Photoshop. Most of us would be totally fine with that since the cost is close to what it would be if we paid to upgrade LR every 18 months or so (but they make more if it would have been 24 months between upgrades). I don't understand the requirement to buy PS along with LR OR be forced to buy the extra storage and LR only. There aren't any other options to select just LR for a lower price. Why not? I have zero interest in Photoshop but I have VERY high interest in keeping my LR going into the future.

It makes more sense for them to hatch a subscription plan in a board room that draws you into paying for something you don't need. Or to make it easier for you to choose another of their products because you are already paying for it. Or to have you unwittingly commit your assets to their cloud to make switching vendors more hassle.

The argument I hear from Adobe subscribers is that they get Premiere Pro, After Effects, Prelude, etc for free, so the cost of their Photoshop subscription is worth it.

None of those photographers I know use, or will probably ever use, those additional applications. But the clever tag-on marketing model works like a charm on them. You know, the ads that give you an exotic fruit peeler if you buy a steak knife at double the normal cost. Same idea.

It's not that cut and dry, though. For those of us who also do video or graphic design, the whole subscription pays for itself quickly - even if we use PP or AE or Illustrator a couple of times per year, that's an expensive license that we avoided paying in its entirety (or piracy and the associated risks). It's enough for a user to require four or five Adobe solutions to justify the full subscription.

Kharan, it's an excellent model for some business users, but what about the thousands of hobbyists? I myself do not do any photography in some months, but Adobe expects me to pay for that month's "use"? It would have been simple for them to use a cloud based measuring tool to to see how many hours you use their program for, and charge you accordingly, but no, they want their money no matter what your usage is. That is not fair. I pay monthly for water and electricity, but at least it is coupled to usage.

@D200_4me I agree, and I think Adobe is making a business error. It's as if McDonald's said, "From now on we only sell triple-cheeseburgers. If you just want a single cheeseburger, you have to buy the triple and throw some away."

mxx: I'm quite sure that the full bundle is meant for professional users :/The photo bundle, on the other hand, is very limiting. When I initially signed up for CC (maybe four years ago? Can't remember now) I didn't touch PS until I was hired for my current position. I'd have loved a standalone LR for $5 monthly, certainly.I was objecting to Vik2012's blanket statement that nobody they know is ever gonna use anything outside of LR and PS, because that could well be false. Having so much software available makes it easier for users to try different things, and encourages experimentation.

Thom Hogan posted a good op-ed on this on dslrbodies this morning. Something that we as photographers with real cameras may not have considered is this. Says Hogan:

"Finally, here's the other thing that everyone in the photography community keeps forgetting: we're in the minority now. Apple, Google, and yes Adobe, all have been making moves regarding "photography" that cater to a new world where most images are captured with smartphones and shared via Internet services. "

Traditional cameras constitute less than 2% of the photographic market (which includes cellphone cameras). Nowhere near enough to keep a big company like Adobe going. Perhaps big enough to keep a startup growing...for a while...if it can capture most of that market.

Yes, but in my extended family of kids, sibblings and cousins numbering in the dozens I’m the only one that uses LR to my knowledge. Adobe makes its money on the professional and photo enthusiast communities. We are the base.

Photoshop is not about simple photo editing. It is one of the most complex, full-featured graphics editors. It's real market is the professional graphics community working with photographs plus a whole lot more. Thus, the ascent of Lightroom.

They said "we will continue investing in perpetual licensed Lightroom" when they released Lightroom CC.Adobe is managed by shareholders now, and they will never give up the huge profit they make from subscriptions.

Having checked out Classic, it seems to have had an awful lot of effort put into it for a product about to be sunsetted. In the meantime, I’ve upgraded to the 1TB plan. The idea of a cloudy/mobile workflow appeals. First results are promising, but the new Lightroom CC is lacking a few things I consider important. To make 1TB work, I’m going to have to get awfully good at culling.

It doesn‘t appeal at all to other LR users. 1 TB ? Well, it’s 35 TB or more for others. Cloud ? With ADSL bandwidths of max. 10 MB/s ? Not so uncommon, still. No way. Pay Adobe to store and access my photos ? For smartphone images, maybe. For professional or serious amateur photography, never.

You can make it out in their naming that Lightroom classic will go away. The reason why they did not kill it is because the new Lightroom CC is not fully developed. Once it has the same features they will say "Oh our customers are confused about the two products and we are now combining the two" No company wants to keep two products that does the same job. Mainly because of the maintenance and also duplicate work. I am sure thats why they killed the standalone version too. Also you need to have increased revenue. So the cloud version is a way to increase the revenue once most of the people have signed up.

I still think it's going to be difficult to migrate users to the cloud completely as the success/failure will involve carriers/ISPs a bit more than Adobe would like and who knows if Adobe can actually support that many users in the cloud. I talked to Adobe more after the interview and it was clear that CC is more of a Beta product for them right now which likely means at least 2 years before we have to really start getting worried.

You can go cloud with Classic but you have to option in and only the photos you select will be uploaded to the cloud. With the new CC, everything is forced into the cloud so every image needs to be uploaded. For those of use who shoot RAW on high resolution cameras with 100's if not 1000's of images per month (even for personal use), it's not realistic yet.

Seconded. A good review would help a lot of Adobe Lightroom users, the overwhelming majority of which I would assume don't want to add a never ending utility bill to their lives. I have nothing against cloud based services...i use Spotify for example. It is great...it gives me access to millions of albums for a low monthly price and does not in any way trap my own mp3 music. I can drop Spotify any time I want with no side effects. My music is still available to me. Adobe Lightroom wants to trap me in so all my photography is only available if I am paying Adobe. NOT INTERESTED. A review of alternatives would be fantastic...i bet it would end up being one of the most read pieces ever on the site.

If you don't pay your subscription you can't edit your own photos and you can't print them. You can export them now, but in the future...? Once in the cloud Adobe will call the shots. The longer you wait the bigger your library is of edited images and the harder to make a move.I regard Spotify as a completely consumer friendly company...totally different from Adobe. Spotify gives you something you don't have (millions of albums) for a very fair price and you can cancel anytime and it doesn't affect what's yours.Adobe's new customer is fundamentally different than an individual consumer. So for many of us it is time to do something else. It can be done. I have been working it and it is going great. Not developing any new pictures at all in Adobe LR. I will export my processed images over the next few months in high res and I'm out.

im out. been with them since v3. no more money for adobe. moving to capture one.

tons of great alternatives to lightroom. we were all lazy and felt comfortable that we all stayed with lightroom. im out. ill make the adjustment as I did learning LR. but it will be better for me down the line.

My opinion based on Adobe's past history is that you cannot and should not believe one single word they say or commitment they make. If you do you just extend the degree you are caught and trapped in the Adobe Lightroom box which makes it harder to get out. Instead consider taking steps now to try other others and exit. I am on that path with Darktable and Epson Print Layout. I see an end to the tunnel. Adobe and Lightroom no longer will be needed or used.

This whole cloud craze puts way too much faith in the Internet which is far more fragile than any of the purveyors would like you to think. I have much more faith in two hard drives - one on the machine and one off. If you are paranoid, go for a third, hard drives are cheaper and faster than the net.

Yeah that's what he and other staff said about the LR standalone and now it's dead. Don't trust anything they say. The least they could do is allow the speed issue to be corrected in LR 6 as a final gesture but I doubt they would even do that! Already in trials with other products. C1 looks great so far.

- Bugs and general slowness in Lightroom 6/classic.- Lack of a perpetual license option going forward. I'm one of those who thinks of monthly payments the way I think of, say, contracting cancer.- Lack of a subscription license option that doesn't include either PS or the cloud. Why pay for something you don't use? And $10/month for just Lightroom is more than twice the previous upgrade cost.- Over-priced cloud storage ($120/TB/year). I can out-right purchase a 4TB drive for $120, and use it for many years (and I have). Amazon's cloud is $60/TB/year. Microsoft's is $70/TB/year and includes Office. Even Google, which is over-priced like Adobe, has a pay-annually option to save $20 a year, which about matches DropBox's $99/TB/year. In short, Adobe is the most expensive and it's only for photos, rather than general purpose.

Microsoft has an even better deal: Microsoft 365 Home is a 5 user pack for 99 a year. Each user account you setup on it gets 1 TB storage. Home users can share out folders with other family home users (even for writing). So even if you reserve a quarter of that for other files, that still leaves you with 3-4 terabytes.

" Lightroom Classic CC isn't going anywhere." Yeah right, just like standalone Lightroom 6, which they said would not be ended. I've begun the transition to DxO Pro. Been a LR user since 1.0, but no more.

This is just vague, marketing speak to keep the gravy train rolling without a slowdown.. don't ever trust a corporate speech at face value.. there is some nuance to what they state here in what they are committed to (as long as they need to be [to keep the record profits rolling in]).

This is just like they did LR standalone.. different team right? hah. But now we can confirm it was just a transition step to the old Lightroom CC. Once that was fully in place and revenue was solid, they were able to cut standalone loose and send it to the bottom. Planned long ago I'm sure.

I have full confidence Adobe will cut loose Lightroom Classic CC as soon as the new Lightroom CC's revenue stream is high enough... if they can get it to work that way.

I think their plan is to make LR CC the default system, but at some point will introduce offline folders of some sort. My guess is that there will be some level of a hybrid system for these - preview versions of the files will be placed on the cloud to allow some level of auto keyword tagging, but the full size file will not be there permanently.

Right now it's not full featured but the core for non technical users is there so they want to start getting user and mindshare. New users cloud have capabilities that desktop can't offer & will be used to paying extra for storage and thus less likely to downgrade later. Once offline storage is a thing they'll be able to go to pro customers and say "see, you'll still have most of the same capabilities, plus look what else you can do if you pay for some storage on the cloud" (Deep fill!). The bad thing is that Catalogs will be gone forever. It will be one large catalog, with a flag for photos not to be stored at full resolution on the cloud.

Thanks for the clarification. LR6 is the same as LR Classic, correct, the only difference being the method of paying for it?

In any case, this means that if someone purchases a camera after January 2018, they'll have to be using the cloud-based Lightroom if they want a seamless workflow without having to develop the RAWs in a separate program.

However I don’t think your “in any case” is accurate. Again, my understanding from reading: yes, after December you will need to buy a subscription-model version of LR. No, it need not be entirely cloud-based editing/storage. LR Classic will continue to allow a disk-based workflow.

True, although it's not clear to what degree we'll be able to disable "the cloud". I would consider LR Classic to no longer be viable since it will only be supported for two more months, and I plan on purchasing a new camera next year that LR Classic won't support.

I'm waiting to hear back from Adobe chat support and will update here when I receive an answer. (their support is very slow, was told to wait 4 minutes and it's been over 8...)

Ok here's how to disable your files from going into the cloud, according to Adobe chat support:

Me: Please direct me to a page which describes how to disable images from uploading to the cloud in the new Lightroom. (paraphrased, they don't echo your question back to you and I forgot how I worded it)

Support: You can keep the cloud sync services paused for not uploading the images to cloud.

Me: How do I do that?

Support: There will be a cloud icon at the top right corner please click there and pause syncing

Me: And will it remain permanently paused even after the application is closed and re-opened again?

Support: yes, it will remain closed

Me: No, I don't mean will the application remain closed. I mean, will the cloud sync remain paused?

Support: yes, i meant the cloud services will remain paused unless you resume it manually

Same here.. thinking about switching to Nikon and getting a D750 in a few weeks. After a few years of that a D850 could be in view... LR6 supports both. So the software could (theoretically) function for some of us for a long time.

they have to say something because they will loose customers with this cloud baseLR a lot of people don't trust the cloud and Adobe being the greedy Basta--s they areonly care about shareholders after all they only made just over a BILLION $ in profit

time people realised what Adobe is doing its all about monies

better changing to one of the other software programs like capture one on1, anything but Adobe

and remember when you cancel your subscription they charge you £50 in the UKdon't no what in USA as I said just greedy Bs

A bank is just another Word for someone else's mattress is that where you want to store your money?

Not just adobe. That's what Apple, Google, and Microsoft are aiming towards by moving everything to web services and so far it seems the public is very happy with the trend. Google Docs is the first credible threat Microsoft Office has seen in decades.

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